Does hand care ruin hand disinfection?

Hand washing and hand disinfection put considerable stress on the skin thus requiring specific hand care. It is important however that the care products do not impair the effect of hand disinfectants. We therefore investigated the interaction of two hand care products (oil-in-water and water-in-oil emulsions) on the microbicidal efficacy of different alcoholic hand-rubs, using the contamination model described in EN 1500. The mean log10-reduction factors for three hand-rubs varied between 4.03 and 4.22 compared with 3.76 and 4.43 for six possible combinations of hand-rubs and hand care products applied immediately prior to disinfection. Differences between reduction factors achieved with hand-rubs alone and in combination with hand care were not significant. Repeated application of care products with subsequent hand disinfection also did not result in significantly lower reduction factors than achieved with hand disinfection alone. Our data suggest that administration of selected products for hand care does not necessarily impair hand disinfection and is therefore recommended for occupational health as well as for infection control reasons.